


He's Off, You See, The Wizard...

by kittydesade



Category: Labyrinth (1986), Once Upon a Time (2011)
Genre: Crossover, Other, Yuletide Treat
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-12-21
Updated: 2011-12-21
Packaged: 2017-10-27 16:01:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,359
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/297596
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kittydesade/pseuds/kittydesade
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Every once in a while, Mr. Gold needs a break. So he goes to visit a friend with whom he has somewhat in common.</p>
            </blockquote>





	He's Off, You See, The Wizard...

**Author's Note:**

  * For [vocal_bard (atrickstertype)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/atrickstertype/gifts).



Neither of them could leave their self-made prisons but they could, at times, overlap them. And rather than endure the boredom of a city full of folk who couldn't begin to keep up with them, they did. It started as an accident at first, the man who called himself Mr. Gold (a pathetic alias, to be sure, but no one would know the difference) looking up to find an owl that was not an owl peeking in his window.

"Now what are you doing here?" he frowned at it, trying to identify the denizen. "I thought I knew all of you ..."

The owl, startled to be noticed, flew away. But not before battering its wings on the window in a fit of pique, Gold was certain.

The letter came a day later, by raven. There were no ravens in North America, although Storybrooke did have its own kind of ecosystem. More suspicious was the writing; there were lack of people who spoke Goblin at all, let alone the fae dialect. He thought he'd forgotten it himself, but reading the invitation brought it all back to him with a vengeance of homesickness and irritation that events were taking so long to unfold. So, why not. It became quite the refuge, even.

"She's an idiot."

Jareth shook his white-blond mane, a stray feather or two falling over his shoulders. He was always worse-tempered when the owl molted before he had a chance to turn back. "Not much worse than the last one."

Gold clicked his tongue and flipped the crystal back in the other creature's direction; Jareth caught it and flicked it back into the aether. "The last one got the better of you, if I recall correctly. No baby, no heir, yes?" He didn't smile, but there was a sarcastic angle to the swirl of his head that encompassed the very empty throne room.

"And you?" Jareth retorted. "I don't see you drowning in the cries of all your first-born conquests."

He smiled. "Early days yet, in this phase of things. Besides, I got something better."

Jareth laughed. "Ah, yes. The favor of a young woman who doesn't know who she is, what she wants, or where she is going. Or even why she now finds herself in your idyllic little hellhole."

"I'd take exception to that if I didn't know you preferred hellholes," Gold lifted an eyebrow, settling his back against the wall and beginning to carve off slices of peach with a pocket knife. "And as I just said, early days yet. She'll learn. Too much at once would spoil the surprise."

The Goblin King shrugged, producing another crystal and then another and juggling them along his hand and arm, if only to fidget with something since Gold had the peach to play with. "And do you think you'll fare any better with your plans than I have with mine? Or do you intend to repeat this once..." He stopped and favored Gold's gleaming dark stare with an arch look from his own mismatched eyes. "Ah, yes. I forget. This isn't about your... circumstance. This is about vengeance."

Peach juice dripped from the corner of Gold's mouth. He pressed his thumb to the side of the pocket knife and slid it up and down to no real purpose as he glared. Certain things, though they hadn't actually agreed upon it at any point, but certain things were not to be addressed. Either of their motivations, for one.

"While you sit here on your empty throne and rule over a land of babbling idiots..."

"And how is that different from your town of empty-headed playthings? Running around in circles, pretending to live ordinary lives without ending..."

Gold flicked the peach pit at Jareth, somewhat out of pique, somewhat because he knew from Jareth being so like him that an intrusion of the ridiculous would annoy him. Jareth caught it, rolled it around his hand and over his knuckles, and threw it back at him. He caught it and watched it glisten on his palm, solid gold.

"Cute." He threw the peach pit over his shoulder where it landed wetly on one of the paving stones, just a peach pit again.

"Aren't you bored?" Jareth flung himself out of his throne as easily as he'd thrown himself in, pacing around the throne room.

Gold shrugged. "Terribly. I could say you've no idea, but I suspect you do. But there's nothing we can do about it, is there? We've made our own prisons out of our ambitions and the shape they took, and now we have to live within them until the original plan comes to bear fruit. I can't say I enjoy it, either," he added, because he didn't. An endless circle of desperate people coming to him, begging, pleading, offering excuses. And when they didn't need him, they looked at him like something with hair and too many legs crawling on the edge of their soup bowl.

Jareth knew. He knew what it had been like and he remembered all too clearly, and after sharing both of those experiences once neither of them felt a need to do it again. Instead they complained about being surrounded by idiots, having no one to talk to but each other, admitting without using the word itself how lonely they had been.

It still was the word uppermost in their thoughts, as Jareth paced and the imp calling himself Gold drummed his fingers on the wall behind him.

"Next time..." Jareth began.

He snorted.

"... If there is a next time," the taller creature amended. "We should put both our minds to it. Come up with something a little more bearable than this." One hand fluttered around at the innards of the castle, lip pulled up in a sneer. Gold laughed softly, shook his head.

"Assuming we can, I would be only too happy to help." He wiped the knife on the cleanest piece of rag to hand and folded it back again, tucking it back into his pocket. "Anyway, it's not all bad. You should visit more often."

"At least you have the benefit of quasi-intelligent conversation," Jareth admitted. "You know I can't manifest in a form suitable for talking unless I'm summoned."

Gold laughed again, and this time the sound skittered off the stones. "I'm sure that could be arranged."

"For a price, of course." Jareth's lips stretched into a smile that hinted at the tips of fangs, if not a great deal of teeth.

The smaller creature showed some of his teeth in an answering smile. "Of course. There's always a price to be paid, even for such as yourself."

There was a moment where the two of them felt the pull of each other's sorcery, all the presence turned fully on each other. Intimate knowledge and the power that brought, the heady awareness of being known so completely and understood, and having that understanding not be a barrier to attachment. Jareth stepped forward, either intimidating or seductive, with him it was often both at once. Gold stepped away from the wall and stood his ground, smirking that half-crooked grin.

"Are we negotiating, then?" he asked after almost a full minute of the staring contest.

The fair-haired creature spread his hands. "We never stopped."

"Ah, yes," Gold inclined his head, never taking his eyes off the mismatched ones. "Of course. Silly me."

Jareth's grin turned almost feral. "Between the two of us, I'm sure your young lady or any of mine..."

"Or any of mine," the other was swift to point out.

"... neither of them would stand a chance."

Jareth's laughter was warmer than Gold's, and less full of sharp edges. Both sounds rang off the stones and chased the few eavesdropping goblins out of earshot. Each of them individually were bad enough in their respective realms, but both of them together would clear streets and corridors wherever they landed. Fortunately for the sanity and the first-born children of both worlds, they could only visit one to the other for a short time. Unfortunately, neither of them needed very long at all. Just the space of a few words would do.


End file.
